Finally, on Friday morning, the two girls, both bearing the same initials, met at Waterloo Station, _en route_ for Southampton. Hunt was there, and also Mrs. Keith. Mrs. Keith looked broken down and very sorrowful; but whatever Hunt's feelings were, he kept them to himself. Kitty's face was radiant, and Katherine's face was strong. Katherine clasped Kitty's small hand, and bent towards Mrs. Keith, and said earnestly,--
"I will take great care of her. It is a venturesome thing that she is doing; but, on the whole, perhaps she is right."
"Her presence may keep Gavon from risking too much," said the widow; "that fact is my only consolation."
Then the train moved out of the station, and the deed was done.
Two girls were standing in a plain, barely-furnished room in the best hotel in Ladysmith. A trunk made of condensed cane was open, and the taller of the two was bending over it and taking out a white muslin dress. She shook it as she removed it from its place in the trunk, and then laid it on a tiny bed which stood in one corner of the room.
"I will put this on," she said; "then perhaps I shall feel cool. I never knew anything like the heat."
"It is the dust that tries me," said the other girl. "See, I put this blouse on not half an hour ago; and look at it now."
The white blouse looked no longer white; it was speckled all over with a sort of red dust.
"It blinds my eyes," said Kitty Hepworth, "and it makes my throat sore. I tasted it on the bread and butter and in the tea we had downstairs. But after all," she added, "it does not matter; nothing matters now that we are safe here."
"We were very lucky to get through," said Katherine Hunt. "They have moved the camp into Ladysmith, and the siege has practically begun."
"You have not heard, have you, whether Captain Keith is here?" asked Kitty.
The words seemed to stick in her throat. She looked full up at Katherine with a pathetic and longing expression in her pretty eyes.
"I don't know. If he is not here, he will be soon. All the forces are to collect in Ladysmith. We are lucky to have arrived safely. Don't let us think of anything else just now."
"I cannot help thinking of him; you know I have come out for his sake."
"I will make inquiries about him as soon as possible, dear. Now, do lie down and rest. Try to have a little faith too, Kitty. Remember how lucky we were to have got here at all. We should not have been able to do it were I not one of the special war correspondents. There was an awful moment at Durban when I thought we could not go forward another mile. Don't you want to see your sister? I am told that she is occupied all day long in the central hospital. I will go over there presently, and tell her that we have arrived."